Friday, 31 October 2025

Good Bye Hokkaido.

Four trains to get me from Hakodate to Hirosaki but a little interlude along the way. First though breakfast at the OMO5 in Hakodate was an adventure on the buffet with two sushi chefs making tasty morsels.

But the thing I wanted to note was this sign. All the hotels used some variant of it and when dining solo it is nice to know that once you have a seat you are going to keep it.

I had three different experiences with getting a table for breakfast. First day was the disaster (from my point of view), the second there was no queue so I went up to the desk and the host organised for a “waiter” to help me find a table. Today also lacked a queue and when I went to the desk I was just given this and I was on my own. It felt like I had graduated or something 🙂

Checking out was basically as I expected. The person on the desk used the table to check me out, flipped the language to English so I knew what was happening, clicked the check out button and tapped my door key and I was done.

A lazy walk to the station in plenty of time to buy a ticket. Enough time to contemplate the public art out the front.

I had sussed out the procedure the day before with the help of one of the staff members helping people in queue. The South Hokkaido Railway’s web site says they have their own ticket machine, they lie (or maybe it’s just changed). Now you use one of the regular JR machines but you can’t flick it to another language as the South Hokkaido Railway is only programmed into the Japanese UI. Anyway a couple of taps later I have my ticket. The woman in the yellow coat is the assistant and there is also a guy hidden from view.

Onto the platform to wait for the single carriage KiHa 40 series train to arrive. I guess as a single person operated train it needs a platform mirror and I couldn’t resist using it.

Inside it seemed to be running a bit of a Halloween theme on the windows.

A uneventful ride for about 40 minutes brings us to the break. This train runs very infrequently so I have 3 hours at Oshima-Tōbetsu. I’m stopping here to visit the grounds of the “Strictly Observant Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of the Lighthouse”, i.e. the Trappist monastery. The walk to the monastery is claimed to take 20 minutes so I probably have 2 hours there. Relatively easy directions plus there are signs to not much chance of getting lost.

The driveway seemed to go on forever, and they weren’t kidding about the 20 minutes.

You could hear cars coming from behind you for some distance due to that road treatment so standing in the middle of the road taking photos wasn’t all that dangerous. I did note that slope up to the monastery gate and thought that my knees weren’t going to enjoy it (they did not enjoy it). The slope is pedestrian only and at the bottom is a parking lot, a shop and a church (which sadly wasn’t open).

At the top there is what I assume is a gatehouse, the rooms have info about the monastery and the Trappists in general but only in Japanese. How’s your Latin for the message on the gate?

This is about as close as you can get to the monks themselves, they only talk when necessary so any conversation might be very short anyway but they introduced Holstein cows to Hokkaido and as a consequence the dairy industry.

They sell butter, cookies, sweets, jams, and soft serve ice cream made from the butter at the shop. That ice cream really hit the spot (sorry no photos).

Without being able to go inside the church and view the medieval stained glass it meant “killing time” with the foliage again 🙂

The Japanese poet Masao Miki, aka Rofū Miki, worked as a teacher of literature at the monastery for 8 years and there is a memorial to his poetry near the carpark.

Walking back down the drive I was taken by the bark on the Japanese Cedars planted alongside it, and the views of the surrounding hills.

Back at the station and another freight train rumbles through. I guess freight keeps the line alive and maintained and the South Hokkaido Railway just has to cover their expenses. My next train turns up and it’s a blue one. Also because this station has no staff and outside of a IC area I get to find out how the tickets work.

A shoddy photo of the ticket I picked up from the machine by the door as I got on.

The important bits are today’s date at the top and the “8” at the bottom. I assume 8 is just an index into the fare table as the station was “numbered” sh05. When we arrive at the terminus the board of fares has 530 showing for 8 and so I give the ticket to him and drop 530 Yen into the coin box. Yesterday I saw a bus driver deal with two (tourists) passengers who wanted to pay their fare with correct money but with a note and coins. He dealt with that problem while letting the tourists go on their way by putting the coins in the coin box and and then putting the note in the change machine and then dropping the resulting coin avalanche into the coin box too.

Anyway now I was nearly at the Shinkansen station. First there were stairs up from the South Hokkaido platform to walk across to the Shinkansen station, then down some stairs to the area with the gates, tap my phone and I’m through the gates (so that bit works) and up stairs again to the platform. Not much up there, a couple of waiting rooms and a narrowish platform since the platform is cut in half by the protective barriers. A north board train comes though so I get to snap that as it slows down into the station. You get a better view without the barriers.

I was also fascinated by the bedding of the rails, not sleepers but large blocks. Then my ride turns up and I video it coming towards me and actually stopping much further up the platform, I’m in car 8 of 10. I get on and someone is sitting in my seat! The apologise and move to what perhaps is their assigned aisle seats. No idea why you would do that as they had to buy their tickets after me as when I bought mine both aisle and window seats were available so they knew it was occupied sometime while they were on board and they got off when I did so they got on one stop before me.

Anyway the “highlight” of this short journey was travelling through the Seikan Tunnel, which at 53.85kms is the longest undersea tunnel.

Getting off at Shin-Aomori and transferring to the mainline train line is where things went pear shaped. At the ticket gate I put in my basic ticket and walked though but the gate said no. It wanted my reservation ticket too. So walk back and try again with two tickets and still no go. The staff member tells me I need to give it the Shinkansen ticket too (I guess we’re in an area of the Shinkansen terminal and I need to “tap out”). So attempt 3 is tap the IC reader for the Shinkansen and the insert the two tickets for the limited express. Still no go and now the gate has eaten the tickets. The staff member tries to get the gate to give them back but no go so brute force is needed.

Yep the tickets were jammed in there alright. No more attempts as we go to the office and he reads the IC card on my phone (and I assume manually exits me) and then he manually stamps my tickets and I don’t need to revisit the gate.

Down to another platform and another short ride to Hirosaki.

Tonight’s dinner was sashimi and sushi sitting at the bar watching the chef work. He had very limited English, I have no Japanese, but I ate what I was given and enjoyed it. As I paid I got given a green tea cup, no idea why due to the language barrier but maybe I was entertaining 🙂

Oh yes as another amusing language interlude the phone battery died before I reached the hotel so the QR code I would have used to check in wasn’t available, and neither was my confirmation emails. Fine, passport is ID, but then the person on the desk wanted to know if I wanted to become a member of the hotel chain’s club. I thought I was but I didn’t have a card because you don’t get one until your first stay and this is it. Curious looks as we try to explain to each other what the situation is. She uses an app to translate her Japanese question to English and as my phone is dead she gives me hers for me to speak into it for translation. I think that sort of worked. I paid the 1500 Yen joining fee and I got my rate changed to the member rate. I don’t know if/when I’ll get a membership card.

The driver for my taxi tour tomorrow also doesn’t speak English so will be using an app. Could be fun, I’ve charged my phone.

Life’s an adventure and travel is fun.